This post was originally going to be about the History Channel paying $3.5 million to advertise their show “Swamp People” during the Super Bowl. As I was reading over the story, however, I came across this paragraph:

“Swamp People” is History’s third most-watched original series, trailing only “Pawn Stars” and “American Pickers.” “Pawn Stars” throughout 2011 averaged 7.02 million L7 viewers, making it the fifth most popular program on basic cable. “Pickers” averaged 5.78 million.

Yeah… none of those shows are about history. Not even a little bit. “Swamp People” is about Cajun dudes catching alligators or something, “Pawn Stars” is just about a fancy pawn shop, and “American Pickers” is about buying and selling antiques. To bastardize a great Mitch Hedberg joke, this would be like if the Food Network started airing a reality show about farmers. It’s ridiculous. Yes, the network’s ratings are up, but I don’t see how they can keep calling themselves “The History Channel” like they’re some beacon for educational programming when their schedule is full of shows like this. I’m on to you, History Channel! YOUR HEAD RESTS UPON A BED OF LIES!

But, the more I thought about it, I realized that the History Channel is far from the only network guilty of this. I’ve compiled a collection of other offenders after the jump.

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Well well well, if it isn’t our old friend, Patti Stanger. When the “Millionaire Matchmaker” star isn’t making sweeping generalizations about Jews and gays, she stays busy by being a  bitch to the wayward idiots who think she can successfully set them up with wealthy mates. In this virtuoso collection of c*ntery created by Vulture, you can watch Stanger put down dozens of women far more attractive than she is — and some men, too (“I wouldn’t have sex with you, and I wouldn’t give you a blowjob,” she says to a hobbit whose response should be relief). All in all, the video makes me wonder how Patti was only the 11th on my list of TV’s most punchable faces.

Oh, and Patti, here’s a quick evaluation of your assets: you’re a hatchet-faced sea cow that couldn’t be made attractive by all the cosmetics in the world, but your face isn’t half as ugly as your personality.

The good news: Andy Cohen, the executive vice president of programming for Bravo (we have him to thank for “Millionaire Matchmaker” and the endless variants of “Real Housewives”), will take a reduced role behind the scenes of the network next year. The bad news: he’s only doing that because the show he hosts, “Watch What Happens Live,” will start airing five nights a week.

The network will announce Tuesday that Mr. Cohen’s show, which now runs twice a week, on Sundays and Mondays, will extend to five nights starting Jan. 8, with the big wrinkle that its schedule will still include Sunday and eliminate Friday. As Michael Davies, the show’s executive producer, put it, “Sunday night is wide open in late night.” [...]

The show has no opening monologue, more reality TV guests than any other late-night show, and the only on-set bar serving cocktails to guests and audience alike.

In addition to the reality TV stars, especially from Bravo’s own shows (lots of housewives), more familiar names like Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Tina Fey have turned up. [NYT]

Andy Cohen can sometimes seem like a warm, friendly person, so it’s important to remember that he hates the sound of children singing. And after the apocalypse, if any slice of humanity remains, he should be remembered as a key player in the downfall of Western Civilization: in creating Bravo’s massive slate of reality programming, he set the standard for giving reality fame-whores larger platforms and their own shows — and then he made “Watch What Happens Live” as a way to increase those platforms and give himself a slice of the fame. Everything about Cohen and Bravo is parasitic, cancerous, and antithetical to creative television. The world would be a better place if he got stabbed to death by a Filipino vagrant.

Even the best reality competitions — and “Top Chef” is certainly that — rely on a format that’s as predictable as it is comfortable to viewers. That’s what makes this video from Jest so funny: in a TV landscape where spin-offs are everywhere, the notion of “Top Chef” focusing on hapless fathers isn’t THAT big of a stretch. And the way this catches the details of “Top Chef” — the kitchen confrontations, the confessionals about teammates, the camera sweeping across the completed dishes — in an economical two and a half minutes makes this a great little spoof.

Judge 1: Charles. I really love the decision to serve the pizza cold.
Judge 2: And the orange soda being flat was a nice touch.
Charles: I lost the top a couple days ago, so I covered it in plastic wrap. No sense in throwing it out!

Morgan Wilson was the runner-up on Season 1 of Bravo’s “Top Chef: Just Desserts.” Now he’s been indicted on three second-degree felony charges of possession with the intent to promote child pornography. Whoops.

Wilson, 38, was arrested on Dec. 7, 2010 — less than a month after the ‘Just Desserts’ finale episode aired — when undercover investigators received file transfers from him via Limewire on his computer in September 2010. The file transfers allegedly contained images and videos of children as young as toddlers engaged in sexual acts, according to Pegasus News…

The executive pastry chef at Dallas’ Ritz-Carlton Hotel Lobby Lounge since 2007, the hotel’s Web site just removed Wilson’s name from the site; their Director of Human Resources Jim Van Winkle had previously declined to verify Wilson’s current employment status at the hotel. [AOL via ScreenJunkies]

It’s got to be tough to keep your job after you’ve been indicted on kiddie porn charges, but at least Wilson works in a field where it might not be entirely detrimental to his reputation. “Whoa, that dude’s attracted to children — I bet he makes AWESOME desserts.”